Here is a picture of the top right hand corner of where the rods join the passenger door handle and door lock actuator. I think the yellow plastic bracket is for the door handle and the orange one is for the door lock actuator.

Here are some pix of where the tongue and groove and the round ball joint area looks like (you will know what I am talking about once you carefully take it apart and see where the parts all line up and fit):

Hope these additional pix further helps those who are contemplating doing the door lock actuator fix. I will be changing out my rear doors at a later date. I will also post pix once I get around to fixing the rear doors.

i was able to fix my actuator in 45 mins and for $90 by buying an oem part on ebay. It was actually pretty easy to do. Just had to be patient and look at what your doing and see how everything works. It was actually trying to find help and understanding what to do that made me not want to try, but when the dealer said $600 ... It was worth the shot. I see alot of threads for things i wanted to do and some are helpful but alot make it sound way worse then it is. I changed all my bumper lights to clear and trying to figure out how to do the rear ones was a nightmare until i just got in and started unscrewing things. All i had to do was take off those mudflap type things and 2 bumper screws and just wedge my hand in there. The fronts were not too bad....everyone saying to take off the wheels...no way, driver side easy just pull back and unbolt and the passenger side was a pain but just need a small wrench. now if anyone can help me with an easy way to remove the entire headlight casing, that would be helpful...thank you very much

I jut finished fixing my passenger side rear door, and driver side front door. Felt I had to, having both doors not working was just not acceptable. Shop wanted $550 per door. Took me 6 hours total. Took my time, and made sure I knew how to put everything back the way I took it out.

The biggest hassle for me was cutting the actuator case. I started with using a box cutter, but was not making good progress. So I went to Lowes and bought a Dremel for $50, and used that. It worked fine, I just tried not to cut all the way thru with it. Using the groove I created wtih the Dremel, I then used the box cutter to finish cutting thru, that way I still had the surfaces contacting each other when I put the side back together. Used super glue to keep it together after replacing the motor.

The connecting rods at first were making me nervous when I was trying to figure out how to unclip and put them back. It was not easy for me to see in there.

The rear door was definitely easier than the front door.

And all the while I was doing the job, I was cussing at Lexus for putting such a !@#$% little tyco motor inside the door for such an important function. Are you kidding me???

Thanks to this forum, and this wonderful DIY for giving me the courage and guidance to get this fixed!!!!